he practiced international trade law and washington. on behalf of the west virginia state society, i would like to introduce ira shapiro. [applause] >> thank you for the kind introduction. thank you to the society for giving me the chance to be here. thanks to mike who did so much to organize the event. he is an old friend. thank you, mike. i'm delighted to be here today with corbin. we have two books that talk about robert byrd from different perspectives. my book is basically about the senate and the last great senate as i refer to it. senator byrd was the majority leader during the period of time i wrote about. it gives you an ensemble sense of how the senate works. the book originated in 2008. i had been in the senate in the 1970s and 1980s. by 2008, i decided the senate had become utterly unrecognizable to me. polarized and paralyzed, really quite dysfunctional. i decided to write a book about the senate when it was great, specifically when i was there. [laughter] when you do something like that, you have a certain risk factor. was